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Raíces: A Writing Workshop Series on Resistance and Healing

“La Primera Raíz / The First Root”: Origin Stories

A monthly community-based writing series that centers Latine, BIPOC, queer, and marginalized voices to explore personal and collective resistance and healing through storytelling.

Origin can mean family, birthplace, your arrival to a new land, it can point to the essence of who you are. The distance of time allows us to reflect on our memories with honesty and insight, possibly recognizing aspects that were unnamed. This generative workshop invites us to explore the past to discover critical aspects of the self. Writers will interact with artifacts that shed light on a moment, place, or person. We’ll use examples from poetry and creative non-fiction to guide us. 

We encourage you to bring journal entries, notes, photos, family interviews, objects from your past, any writing artifact that can help you recall memories and expand your writing. We’ll work off several writing prompts to write poems and nonfiction using examples from contemporary writers. 

About the Facilitator: Cynthia Via [she/her]

Cynthia Via is a multi-genre writer working as a teacher, editor and journalist. She explores gender, the duality of motherhood, and the intersection between humans and nature. Her poetry and prose has appeared in Write or Die, Grace & Gravity, The Acentos Review, Coffin Bell, among others. She is a Tin House and VONA Workshop Alum. She was a featured reader at 804 Lit Salon, The Inner Loop, Dupont Underground and Electric Euphoria. She also performs comedy, since she can’t afford therapy. She was raised in New York, born in Peru, and lives in cozy Maryland. Find her: cynthiavia.com | IG: @nekoenlaluna. [she/her]

What to Expect

Each session includes a grounding welcome, a generative free-write, a deep dive into the theme, writing prompts, and time to share with each other in a supportive, welcoming space. 

Participants are encouraged to speak, write, and share in both English and Spanish, and use the language(s) that feel most true to you.

No experience required. Come as you are, bring a notebook or laptop. Extra notebooks and pens will be provided. 

RSVP

Let us know you’re coming: RSVP Link 

Feel free to invite friends and community members who would love this space.

About Raíces

Raíces is a writing series hosted by Tintas DC exploring storytelling as resistance and healing. Each month centers a different theme: from origin stories, to collective healing, to land and displacement. The series culminates in a community showcase this spring.

About Tintas DC

Tintas DC is a Latine writers group for storytellers in the DMV. Their mission is to share stories that build community. Follow and connect with them @tintas.dc

**This is a rescheduled date; the original workshop was scheduled for 1/25. 

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